This is MY vote! Notes on the Nonexistence of Democracy

Terms like soft totalitarianism or enlightened despotism begin to convey the situation of representative oligarchy, which is one the strangest ideologies ever to arise. I spend a lot of time thinking about it, not always from the standpoint of aversion but sometimes even from grudging respect.

But my respect for 'democracy' is not based on its existence, since I have never known one to exist in all of human history which was not the inclusive rhetoric of an oligarchic class. Rather, such respect as it has pried from my white-knuckled fingers is due to the very license that the mass presumption of its existence entails.

The belief that freedom of expression and other rights are a bulwark against tyranny ignores the fact that autocrats have always understood the role of a limited degree of license, and never so sophisticatedly as at present; for there are subtler ways of controlling people than overtly crushing them.

Overt suppression spooks the herd, wastes resources, sours foreign relations, and discourages not only those activities on the part of the population which might be construed as negative but also those which might be construed as positive. Societal traumatization results in a regression in all classes of behavior, including those which rulers in general desire, those classes of behavior tending to preserve their power base while still affording the peons the opportunity to stretch their legs.

Social atomization? Meet freedom of speech. Freedom of speech? Meet social atomization. I’ll sure that you’ll have much to talk about.